Calgene Gets Good News on Special Tomato

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that it is ready to end its regulation of Calgene’s genetically engineered tomato.

Such a ruling, proposed to take effect after a two-week comment period, would mean that Calgene could continue to grow the tomato, unrestricted, without obtaining additional permits from the USDA.

Calgene is now in the scaling-up stage--it is growing the tomatoes and harvesting seeds in an effort to accumulate enough of the seeds to allow initial commercialization by mid-1993.

The Davis, Calif., company is still hoping for a ruling from the federal Food and Drug Administration that would allow it to sell the tomato without FDA regulation. In May, the FDA signaled that it probably would not place marketing restrictions on the Calgene tomato.

The tomato, which has been designed to stay fresh longer, has been grown in field trials for three years, under USDA review.

“Never before has any whole food been so thoroughly examined for potential risks as the Flavr Savr tomato,” said Roger Salquist, chief executive of Calgene. “The USDA reviews over the past three years will assure growers and consumers that all environmental issues for this product have been resolved.”

Salquist also pointed to the unblemished safety record of hundreds of other field trials--accounting for more than 300 permits from the USDA--of genetically engineered plants that have been conducted in the United States since 1987.

In its statement Monday, the USDA said: “After reviewing information submitted by Calgene as well as other relevant data, we are proposing to issue a ruling that there is no reason for us to regulate the growing of this tomato any longer. However, since this is the first petition of its type and we want to be sure that everybody with views on the issue has a chance to air them, we are opening a comment period.”